


God Between Us and Evil

by SirJosephBanksFRS



Category: Aubrey-Maturin Series - Patrick O'Brian
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-08
Packaged: 2017-12-18 01:54:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/874352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirJosephBanksFRS/pseuds/SirJosephBanksFRS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stephen Maturin stays at the Marshalsea with Jack Aubrey following his sentencing for rigging the stock exchange in <i>The Reverse of the Medal.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	God Between Us and Evil

Standing in Guildhall, Jack Aubrey felt something snap in him when his verdict and sentence were read to him. Something deep inside of him felt as though it were bending, tearing and then there was a painful snap and he looked up, his eyes already clouded and dazed with the realization that life as he had known it since he was a child of twelve years old had come to an end. His career in the Royal Navy was over.

As disturbing, the whole world had changed in Jack's mind. Nothing was as it seemed anymore. Stephen Maturin had been right; an entirely innocent man could be tried and convicted of a crime he did not commit by the country for which he risked life and limb since childhood. Men who most certainly understood that he was not guilty and that he did not share his father’s Radical politics were happy to ruin his life for the sake of political advantage. He had never thought such a thing to be possible in his own country. He had thought wrong and the shock alone was deeply wounding. The reality of what it all meant was far worse.

The world looked different: smaller, darker, out of focus. He turned and looked at Sophie and she looked different to him as well. He saw tears welling up in her eyes. A numbness had already settled on him. She squeezed his hand and he could barely make out her individual fingers pressing his. His face felt paralyzed. He raised his hand to his face and both hand and face felt numb and he looked down at his feet. He heard a buzzing in his ears and took deep breaths.

Jack and Sophie returned to his room in the Marshalsea together and more than anything, Jack had wanted her to go home to Ashgrove. He was so miserable, he could not stand her being there, let alone the possibility of her seeing him pilloried. He could not bear the responsibility of having to be pre-conviction Jack Aubrey for her and the idea of saying or doing anything to wound her in any way added to his pain. She had insisted on going out and bringing dinner back. He would be sending her home with Killick as soon as they had eaten. He could not bear for her to see him this way. He could not bear for anyone to see him this way. He momentarily wished the earth would open up and swallow him before he bristled at his own self-pity. His current state was more alien to him than any experience in his entire life and he hated himself for how at sea he had become with the reading of his sentence. He did not know how to not be amiable and now he was as far from amiable as a man could be. He felt as though he had no idea how to even exist as the person he had now become, John Aubrey, _ex_ Royal Navy.

Jack picked up his violin and played, scarcely conscious of what he was playing. The door opened and Jack turned furiously to glare and abuse whomever it was who had the temerity to come in without invitation, at the same time reminding himself he was now a real prisoner, not just a defendant and he saw it was Stephen. The savagery was gone from his face because it was Stephen, the only person on earth he had any desire to see. Jack felt an infinitesimal lift in his spirits and then the crushing sensation of doom returned.

“I beg pardon, Jack,” Stephen said, “I thought you said “Come in.””

“Oh,” cried Jack, his face relaxing, “I took you for – I am very happy to see you, Stephen. Sit down: Sophie has just stepped out to buy some chops.”

Seeing Stephen there, Jack remembered the other news that had been so shocking that it was almost incomprehensible to him, that Stephen Maturin had actually bought the _Surprise_ for him. Stephen had bought _Surprise_ as a present for Jack, an idea that when Jack finally apprehended it made him dizzy through the strange sensation that was both profound numbness and pain in his head, like being struck with a truncheon, blacking out and then coming to, the pain being the first dim, deep sensation in the recesses of consciousness.

That Stephen had bought _Surprise_ was virtually incomprehensible. Jack's last command had been bittersweet the entire voyage, knowing what awaited her when they returned to Pompey. Jack had been very close to mourning the last three months of their trip home, thinking of _Surprise_ going to the knacker’s yard, had avoided people, had partially engaged in this retrospectively idiotic stock speculation because thinking of _Surprise_ ending up as firewood was as painful to him as the thought of his own children being sold out from under him. He had known her man and boy and he passionately loved her; he loved her as much as any man could love a supposedly inanimate object. She was not inanimate to him; she was as living and breathing as any animal he had ever saddled. He knew her timber by timber, spar by spar, shroud by shroud and he loved her with his whole heart, more than any ship of which he had ever been given command, more than any ship he had ever sailed in. He had wept thinking of some terrible fate befalling her, he had resigned himself to the fact that she was gone forever when his apparent fortune had turned to smoke. He had mourned her momentarily as well and then Sophie had told him the unfathomable news that Stephen had bought her, a fact he could not even understand the mechanics behind. He had no idea that Stephen had the necessary wealth to buy her out of hand and then the additional facts about securing the letters of marque and outfitting her were even more fantastic.

When Sophie had told Jack, the words almost could not sink in. The seeming impossibility and then the magnitude of the act, the most extravagant gesture Stephen could have ever made, aside from procuring the actual moon and stars for Jack and bringing them to the Marshalsea and spraying them across the ceiling of his prison cell, an act no more incredible to Jack than procuring his beloved _Surprise_ and making her effectively entirely Jack's. Procuring _Surprise_ , procuring letters of marque, procuring a mission for them, all done by Stephen incomprehensibly fast.

It was, of course, far more than a gesture. It was utterly Stephen: pragmatic and reasoned and efficient. And behind that pragmatism was the most generous and tender declaration of affection that Jack could imagine, indeed there was no declaration of affection that Stephen could have made that would have meant more to Jack, given his attachment to _Surprise_ and the opportunity to have employment commanding her, answerable only to Stephen (which meant effectively only to himself, as Stephen had no interest in the running of a ship) thereby preserving what little was left of Jack’s tattered dignity with no merchantman owners for him to beg and scrape to in order to feed his children.

It took Jack's breath away and he regretted extremely that he could not now express anything to Stephen that would in any way reflect the depth of his feelings because of the profundity of his heartache. Jack had never realized the degree to which emotional pain could affect him, quite incapacitating him and his ability to express anything but the most mechanical of thoughts. Not that Stephen expected or wanted anything, not even a thank you. Stephen loathed the idea of moral advantage between friends. But Jack wished he could express to Stephen how profoundly moved he was, that deep under the layers of almost impenetrable numbness and profound pain, Stephen had touched him more deeply than Jack could have ever conceived possible.

They discussed _Surprise_. Jack’s reaction was what Stephen had anticipated. Certainly, it was as good news as he could have possibly received at that point, but it could not address the loss of Jack’s identity. Being in the Royal Navy was not merely a career for Jack. It was his entire existence, his life and he was now at a near loss. He had never for a second considered how he would live removed from the institution. It was inconceivable to him and it was now his reality.

Jack’s appearance did not startle Stephen. It was about what he had expected and it pained him. He had seen it before in others who had lost virtually everything that mattered to them. Jack Aubrey had changed, there was a stiffness and brittleness that the doctor had never seen, under any circumstances. There was a formally maintained distance as well that Maturin did not take personally. He understood it, had experienced it himself. It was a survival instinct of the most basic sort, a last gambit to maintain any dignity whatever under absolutely crushing circumstances to avoid complete abasement. His particular friend appeared to be in a state of complete shock. He had the look of someone who had experienced the incomprehensible and had barely physically survived a terrible ordeal. It reminded Stephen so much of himself after Mahón that it was painful to behold. If anything, Jack was more crushed than Dr Maturin had been. Dutourd had not destroyed Stephen’s faith in all of humanity. Quinborough, the barristers and the jury apparently had completely extinguished any faith Jack had in the intrinsic goodness of his nation and his fellow man. Jack was deeply Stoic, but his Stoicism could only extend to that over which he had control. His pain was raw and obvious to Stephen. Jack was deeply grief stricken for a life lost, and that life was his own.

Sophie returned, they had the dinner and then she left for Ashgrove with Killick in tow. Stephen walked her outside and she thanked him profusely for being there.

“Stephen, I must go home. I should not for the world but I cannot stay and be yet another burden for Jack to bear. He cannot possibly withstand any more.” Sophie said with tears in her eyes. “He has his own way of saying so without a word. Might you stay a while with him, Stephen? I know he should be at ease with you. He is always at ease with you.”

“Dear soul, it is taken care of.” Stephen said, taking her hand. “Everything that can be taken care of is or will be taken care of. Go home and sleep now. I shall bring him home when all is over.” She kissed him and thanked him and she and Killick left.

Stephen went back in the room and found Jack staring into the fire. Again, it reminded Stephen of the months after Mahón, his own pain, his own despair. He sat next to Jack and said nothing.

“Will you be leaving? It will be getting dark soon and they will lock the gates.” Jack said, finally.

“No, my dear, unless you so wish. This is a sedulously venal institution. I may stay as long you wish, every second until you leave, if you so desire and we shall be undisturbed.” Stephen said and he rose and retrieved a bottle of wine he had brought with him and opened it.

“I shan't be much company, Stephen.”

“I did not come seeking entertainment, Jack.” Stephen said and handed Jack a glass of wine.

“Queeney used to tell me I was born under a lucky star.” Jack said quietly. “She said she never worried about me getting knocked on the head, that my inborn luck would always prevail in the end.” He took a sip of the wine. “My mother died when I had just turned seven and I remember thinking it was a nightmare, that I would go to bed and wake up and she would be there. And I went to bed and woke up and things were worse the next day. And worse the next. Worse and worse until I wandered into the Thrale’s garden. Queeney was great girl of fourteen or fifteen, I thought she was already a young lady then. She was kind, alway so very, very kind.” He swallowed and put the glass down. “I wanted to live at their house. My old nurse would come and fetch me and be scolding me the entire way home, just as Killick scolds you when you get blood on your coat, Stephen. Finally, she sent some of my clothes over so I should at least be presentable, that I should have something to wear when my clothes were in the scullery and not be wrapped in a blanket.”

“Your father?”

“He was never around. There were less servants after my mother died. He sent some of them away, he had no idea what they did or how to run a house. Twas just money out of his pocket. It was four and a half years, Stephen, until I left and was a supernumerary in my first ship, _Resolution_ in ‘83. But Queeney, God bless her, what a friend. You would hardly credit it, such a beautiful great girl who was almost a young lady having an interest in a grubby, barely breeched little boy.” Jack sighed as he drained the wine and stared into the fire.

They sat in silence and then there was a short knock at the outer room door and the door opened and shut. It was the turnkey locking them in for the night. Jack did not turn and look. Stephen checked the time on his watch.

Stephen rose and took Jack's glass. He went to the table and poured it full and put ten drops of the tincture of laudanum in it. Jack never turned from the fire. Stephen poured himself another glass and returned to Jack.

Stephen handed the glass back to Jack and sat next to him. They sat in silence for a long time whilst drinking the wine and looking at the fire. Stephen reached and took Jack’s hand in his and Jack looked at him. Stephen did not move. He looked back at Jack, looked at his pained and somehow empty face, his blue eyes now dulled with pain, the sparkle gone from them. “The overall impression is one of extreme detachment but with obvious pain still evident,” Stephen thought, "His eyes and his mouth are set in pain."

"Stephen, the first time we were together in your room at the Grapes, you said something I never understood until today." Jack said, very quietly. "Now I find I apprehend your meaning perfectly." Stephen sat back and gazed at him at length.

"What was that, soul?"

"About the way that I saw you, the way I looked at you that night. That you could stand my company because of it.” Stephen said nothing. “Everyone looks different to me now, Stephen, everyone except for you and the way you look at me.”

Jack leaned into Stephen. Stephen leaned forward, feeling Jack's lips part against his own, tasted the very faint trace of laudanum in the wine in Jack's mouth and then felt Jack's arms pulling him closer. Then Jack's hand was on his hand, pulling it forward and laying it on Jack's waist, tucking Stephen's fingers firmly beneath the placket of his breeches.

Stephen stood and pulled Jack up and they walked to Jack's cot and Stephen sat down, pulling Jack to him. Jack stood before him, his hands were cold.

"This is not our first prison." Jack said.

"No," Stephen said, remembering the erstwhile Temple. He and Jack had made love as noiselessly as they possibly could, given that Jagiello was around the corner of the stone wall, asleep. Stephen remembered the succor of Jack's arms after an interrogation that had made him fear his life might end the next day.

Stephen undid Jack's stockings, loosened his breeches at the knees and then undid the girth and undressed him from the waist down, slowly, touching Jack's hip and feeling how cold he was. He pulled Jack's hand to sit next to him on the cot. Jack undressed Stephen slowly, his hands trembling as he did so. Stephen stood up next to him and loosened Jack's queue, stroking his hair and the side of his face. Jack looked up into Stephen's eyes and Stephen leaned down, gathering Jack in his arms and kissed him long and hard and Jack pulled him onto the narrow cot, virtually on top of himself, saying very softly, "Brother, please, if you please..." Stephen reached for the blanket to pull it over them and kissed Jack tenderly, his heart feeling as though it should burst.

Stephen tenderly made love to Jack and was not surprised at all when tears copiously ran down the sides of Jack's face. Feeling his tears streaming, Jack raised his forearm in front of his face to shield his eyes from Stephen, and then turned his face away, a gesture Stephen found utterly heartbreaking, one of the most heartbreaking sights of his entire life. He inhaled sharply to keep from weeping himself and leant forward, kissing Jack's neck and caressing his hair.

"Pray, Stephen, do not stop," Jack whispered. Stephen did not stop until Jack spent. He kept holding him until Jack fell asleep, then covered him with the other blankets, dressed and pulled up a chair to sit next to Jack in the cot.

Jack's great natural residual sweetness of spirit seemed extremely diminished, as though this experience had extirpated it. In its place, Stephen identified an underlying hardness of affect and a bitterness he had never known. It grieved him extremely. He sat in contemplation and then detected a sentiment rising steadily in his own breast and abstractly analysed it and named it. It was rage: extreme murderous rage. Stephen found himself grinding his molars, a bad habit that he had initially overcome with the first man he had called out and killed over a matter of honour at swordpoint whilst at Trinity College, a habit the reappearance of which had a tendency to foretell bloodshed. He unclenched his teeth, rubbed his jaw and without thinking started grinding them again.

Stephen had spent the last few weeks attempting to move heaven and earth, exerting more effort than he ever had to accomplish anything in his life trying to avert this outcome for Jack, all to no end. He was now very conscious of having played a losing game of chess against an unseen opponent who had set up the board and checked his every move, an opponent whose goal had been the humiliation, degradation and ruin of Jack Aubrey because of deep personal animus. Such a degree of venom was necessarily personal. The entire affair had been so well orchestrated that it was dubious that any amount of effort on Stephen’s part could have changed the outcome.

Stephen's immediate priority was dealing with Jack now; in the Marshalsea he was and in the Marshalsea he would stay until Jack's brutal sentence was carried out. Pullings would do everything necessary for _Surprise_ so that Jack would be able to put to sea as soon as he had recovered from the ordeal. Jack's employment and restoration to the Navy list was Stephen's next priority but uncovering the culpable party in this debacle was a close second. The culprit would be unmasked and when he was, Stephen knew that he would not rest until he had personally taken the man’s life. Yes, the animus on Stephen’s part was now entirely personal and yes, he would commit a mortal sin in order so to act. He fell asleep considering rifles that he had seen of late and their remarkable accuracy.

Stephen woke up some hours later to Jack's arms pulling him out of the chair and back into the cot, Jack wrapping himself around Stephen's person.

“Pray, do not leave me, Stephen.” Jack murmured, asleep.

“God between us and evil, Jack, never.” Stephen said, kissing Jack’s face and he fell asleep.


End file.
